It was a scary night for Blake Geoffrion’s parents

When the Hamilton Bulldogs’ Blake Geoffrion suffered a depressed skull fracture during a game against the Syracuse Crunch last Friday night at the Bell Centre, his parents, Danny and Kelly, were in the stands watching.

After the player was transported by ambulance to Montreal General Hospital, the Geoffrions learned their son had had a seizure and were asked for their consent for emergency surgery. Following the surgery, Dr. David Mulder told Blake’s parents they would run a cat scan on their son in 30 minutes to see how everything looked and if he had swelling in his brain he could have brain damage.

“We were sitting there like, (you’ve) got to be kidding me. Like how does this happen,” Danny told The Gazette’s Brenda Branswell. “Thank God we were able to find out 30 minutes later that everything went great. And from that point on, as you can see, it’s been nothing but positive, positive, positive.

“I don’t even remember those five hours,” Danny added. “It was like a lot of pacing.”

The doctors had to remove a piece of Blake’s skull the size of a silver dollar and replace it with titanium mesh. Medical staff now expect him to make a full recovery.

“The big thing is for Blake to get good and healthy,” his father told Branswell.

“What the future lies I have no idea, nobody knows at this point. But I can tell you that Blake’s had concussions in the past. Now he’s had this.”

One of the surgeons said it would be a good idea for Blake to take the remainder of the season off so he fully recuperates.

The group lead by Geoff Molson paid 5 or 6 hundred million dollars for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team AND Centre Bell AND Evenko. The info in this suggest that Evenko and the Bell Centre are both quite valuable, therefore the Montreal Canadiens are likely worth much less than the often quoted sale price. I have two question for anyone with the correct answer, or even a reasonable guess.

1. How much are the Montreal Canadiens worth. Not the building, and not event promotions company, just the hockey team?

2. What is a reasonable rate of return on an investment in a hockey team. Off the top of my head I think net profit / total market capitalisation for giant oil companies is like 8%. I think grocery stores are down around 2%. 5% is probably good for a restaurant. How much profit should a hockey team pocket after taxes? 5%? 10%? 25%?

* note #1: I believe interest expenses are irrelevant because those expenses are incurred voluntarily by NHL owners who chose to buy teams with borrowed money. The guy who owns the Buffalo Sabres, for example had the option of using his own cash to buy the hockey team, or paying someone else to use their cash. That decision is irrelevant to the “nature” of the investment.

* note #2: The point I’m leading to is if (to throw out some random numbers) 10% was a good return, and the Canadiens were worth $200 million, then the owners of that team should have no reasonable expectation of earning more than $20 million per season and if Geoff Molson chooses to spend that money on interest payments the players shouldn’t have to make those interest payments for him. I’m not suggesting that “10%” and “$200 million” are the correct numbers. I’m asking for informed opinions on what those numbers should be. Thx.

I don’t follow your last point. Those thing aren’t investments, with the possible exception of the house and even if I rent that to someone I wouldn’t expect to generate positive cash flow from that investment. My profit from my investment in a house will usually be an accounting profit in the form of increased equity until I “own” it. Commercial real estate is probably a good comparison, but whether the land lord takes his profit in the form of cash, or increased equity in the property is of no concern to the tenant. I would be willing to debate your point, but your outright dismissal of the premise, IMO is not a sophisticated view of the situation given the facts.

P.S. If there’s one point that commandant has argued very well it’s that those Forbes numbers are no more reliable than your guess or mine. Less so, probably given Forbes’ ideological motivation to present biased numbers. ; )

#1 – Interest is definitely a factor in business (and in our personal finances). Therefore my point is that you cannot properly discuss any business finances after excluding it as you did. You can do so if you want but it isn’t reality so I’m not interested.If you want to talk real finances then I’m in.

#2 – Not sure of why Forbes would be looking to project biased numbers here. They are one of the top financial medias in the world so their credibility would be important to them. And their research and experience would give them insight that you and I probably don’t have.

Obviously, the most important thing is that Blake will make a full recovery but there is a secondary issue for him as well. At 24 years of age, Blake has tasted the NHL but had yet to break through as a regular. He is at a critical stage of his career. Blake obviously worked hard this off season and it showed. He looked more engaged and a lot faster this year. So much so that some at HIO were commenting that he might be the best fit as the fourth line center instead of White or Noklelinen.(sp?). I love White but found myself agreeing with this assessment.

We all now with each passing year more and more prospects are added to the mix and the competition to become a regular becomes even harder.

Blake’s long term health is the most important issue but his battle to become a regular in the Habs lineup was an uphill battle to begin with; that hill just became much steeper.

I love these two lines when lumped together:
“Nobody’s really moving a whole lot on their side and I think we’ve made steps to show we’re willing to negotiate, but I don’t think that’s happening on the other side.”

– and –

“Guys aren’t going to give in when it comes to contracts now, it’s not going to happen,”

Sid, as he said, is ready to negotiate, just not about stuff, as he said, he doesn’t want to negotiate about.
But it seems, Sid, like you don’t realize that’s what you just said. It seems like you think their non-budging is irrational and foul while your non-budging is noble and righteous.

I wish someone would point that out to him while he’s at the podium. I’d love to hear what the Fehr approved response would be.

PS: I also like this: “…contracting rights, it doesn’t have anything to do with….it’s not money”.

Heres an interesting tweet by Damien Cox 30 mins ago ” Maybe instead of attacking Recchi the PA should ask guys like Ference, Stajan and Hamhuis hard questions about how Fehr hijacked the union “. Not sure what Cox is getting at here but sounds like more shit around the PA executive. Anyone have any insight on this comment of Cox’s ?

Totally guessing here Ron, but I read somewhere that one of the reasons it took so long for Fehr to officially accept job as NHLPA leader was he was negotiating a bunch of changes to the process involved in getting rid of the NHLPA head. In other words he made sure that he created a position where the difficulty in removing him was increased. Not unlike how Bettman has changed the commissioner status to where 22 of the 30 owners must agree to get rid of him.

This may be related…to what Cox is talking about. Since he mentions Ference as a ringleader in overthrowing previous Union Boss and is now nowhere to be found.

Soon after the Cox tweet, Jimmy Murphy tweeted “By the way, anyone seen the Kelly report ? Oh yeah, not available eh ! “.
So I think you are right Burly, sounds like it was in relation to the way Fehr had players screw the existing head to have Fehr himself take over. Scum bags on both sides.

Very much like one of PK’s many big hits. Nothing illegal about it and 99% of the time the player just bounces back up and the play goes on. Just terrible luck for Geoffrion. Happy he will make a full recovery.

I think the blade caught him, but it was his head hitting the ice that did it. Took all his weight.

I’d just been talking about bad-luck hits two nights previously with a buddy of mine, and we were discussing a rugby player who’d broken his neck and vertebrae from a head-on-head hit… the sort of hit that he’d have had a million times before, but just the minute difference in angle of that hit cost him his career.

Let’s hope that Blake gets over this and is back doing what he loves as soon as possible.

Phil, have read several articles on this in the French media. At the end of the day, they are not 100% sure how it occurred. Medical opinion was that to do that damage it would most likely be the end of a skate instead of the flat ice surface or the rim of the boards by the glass. However there is no film to back that. Another issue is that his helmet broke off in several small pieces. Did it break when his head hit the boards and then a broke off piece did the skull damage…interesting to know.